I love this dog!

I know I have posted a lot of pictures of Tinkerbell snuggling my babies, but I just can't resist. I am so happy that with all Tink has been through that she is still with us. She is such a great dog and a huge part of our family! She's really been taking care of Kendall this week as she has been recovering from her surgery.

The new and improved...

pool liner! As promised back when I published this post here are some pictures of the new pool liner.

 As you can tell the water looks blue...

 which is kind of crazy since...

I had a brown liner installed. Yes, it may be a little difficult to tell in this picture but the liner is brown. I absolutely hated the white liner that the pool use to have. I've been itching to replace it since we bought the house. I always thought that I would go with a blue one but once I saw this one I knew it was the one. I love it!

Kendall's 5 Year Stats

Kendall had her five year old well child visit on June 15th. She weighed 44lbs (75th percentile) and was 46 inches tall (96th percentile).

NKOTBSB Picture Edition

I guess by the video I posted last week you all have figured out where I was last Tuesday night...

 Me and my friend Brooke went to Nashville for the night to see the NKOTBSB concert.

 We had awesome seats! 11th row on the floor!

 Backstreet Boys

 Here come the New Kids on the Block!

 Me and Brooke halfway through the concert.

It was a great show and a great girls night out.

5th 5K of the Year

I ran my 5th 5K of the year this morning. The race was in Ringgold, Georgia and was a benefit race for the Ringgold High School which suffered extensive damage from the April 27th tornados. Kaitlynn went with me to cheer me on and take pictures. Here I am at the start of the race.

 I didn't wear my Garmin because just my luck I must have left it on after my 10K last week and the battery was dead. I really like to use it to help keep my pace and know where I am during the race. Like today I had no idea the finish line was coming up until it was there. Oh well, I finished the race with a time of 27:42 and my Garmin is now charged and waiting to be used. ;) Here is a picture of me about to cross the finish line.

 I really couldn't believe the damage I saw throughout the course. As I ran I could see bulldozers and hear nail guns. It's been almost two months since numerous tornados left a path of destruction through the city of Ringgold but it was obvious that the people of the city have been working hard to rebuild every day since then.

 This race had a nice surprise ending... On top of the bananas and apples that almost every race provides to their runners at the finish line this run handed out bags of Krystals and Moonpies. Awesome!

 They were making the Krystals in this snazzy truck so they were nice and hot for us when we finished.

 Yes, I thought this was so cool. I love Krystals :)

 There was also a nice band playing. I got their names in case Trey ever wanted to hire them to play at one of our fantasy football events.

 After the race Kaitlynn and I drove around to look at some of the damage. I drove her along the course so she could see what I had seen. Below is a picture of what is left of a hotel.

 The roads were lined with piles of rubble. You could tell lots of time had been spent on clean-up.

 Here is a picture of two houses that were on the course. I just had to show Kaitlynn this. Notice the white house which seems to be fine.

 Right beside it there was a brick house that obviously got hit hard.

 Lots of places had started rebuilding and repairing.

 While others are still waiting on new roofs and windows.

 The piles of debris were huge and were on almost every street.

 Above is a picture of the high school. Lots of work is being done this summer to get this school opened by September 6th.

Below is a picture of what use to be a Hardee's restaurant.

 The closed down Krystal.

 Oh, and the McDonalds.

 There weren't many gas stations left. Most of them looked like this.

 It is so hard to believe this damage and scary to think this was only 58 miles from my house. An F5 tornado touched down that night in our city but luckily it's path was about 7 miles from our home and in a less populated area. Yes, there were folks that lost their homes but the number of families that lost their homes in Ringgold is so much higher. We were so lucky that night.

Lots of work is being done and we saw a sign for a brand new Wendy's restaurant that said now open. The city is definitely rebuilding but it will take time. A lot more time than it took those tornados to create this damage. On a good note the race this morning brought together over 800 runners and walkers and raised over 30,000 dollars!! It feels so good to run a race for such a great cause.

No more tonsils or adenoids...

Kendall had surgery yesterday to remove her tonsils and adenoids. This makes her third surgery. Out of our three daughters she is the only one to have surgery and wow she's at 3 already. Doesn't seem fair...

This surgery came about pretty quickly. On the 15th of this month Kendall went to see her pediatrician for her five year old check up. Her doctor said Kendall's tonsils were twice the normal size and started asking about her snoring and gagging. Kendall started snoring earlier this year but I didn't think much about it. When she asked if she gags easily I said yes and immediately started feeling bad. I should have put this together sooner. Kendall gags quite frequently even when she isn't eating. It's pretty intense and sometimes ends in vomiting. I've always just assumed Kendall got stressed out about gagging and that is why she would throw up. Never even considered the fact that she had a medical condition causing this. Her pediatrician referred her to an ENT.

We saw the ENT on the 20th and his words were "Girl, you have some big honking tonsils!" He said on a scale of 1-4 Kendall's tonsils were a 3.5 and he also said because of her nasally voice he bets her adenoids are huge too. I never even thought she had a nasally voice I just thought she was soft spoken. He said once those tonsils are removed she will sound different and be louder. I told Trey that and he said we are never getting Kylee's removed. Haha! He examined her ears and due to all the scar tissue he wasn't able to get a clear view of her left ear. Kendall had a lot of trouble with her ears when she was younger and has unfortunately had occasions when her eardrums have ruptured. He said her ear problems were probably due to large adenoids not allowing fluid to drain and therefore building up behind her eardrums. He scheduled her surgery for yesterday the 24th.

The surgery was performed at a surgery center. So much better than a hospital when you are scheduled for an outpatient surgery. We learned this the hard way when Kendall had her dermoid cyst removed and her surgery got bumped by about 6 hours due to emergency appendectomies. It was nice knowing that everything would stick to a schedule there.

Kendall got the happy juice before this surgery and boy was she a hoot on that stuff. It hit her suddenly too. Out of the blue she yelled out "I think I lost my panties!" I said, "what?" She said, "My panties are missing!" I pulled the sheet back and showed her that she did indeed have panties on and that they were Rapunzel panties. Then she started saying "Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair." At this time Trey and I were pretty sure the medicine had kicked in. They wheeled her back to surgery not long after that.

The surgery itself took less than 30 minutes and we learned that Kendall's adenoids were very large as well and were blocking 75% of her airway. The doctor said the surgery went very smoothly and sent us home with lots of instructions for the next three weeks. It's mostly a lot restrictions which isn't going to make Kendall too happy.

So far she is doing pretty good. She takes pain meds every four hours and an antibiotic twice a day. She has already eaten a ton of popsicles and it looks like pancakes are going to be her favorite food over the next few days. I can not wait for her to be fully healed and see the positive changes that the surgery has on her.

NKOTBSB

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10K

I ran my first 10K of the year on Saturday. This was the second 10K race that I have completed. I, of course, was hoping it would be a flat one... No such luck. I'm 70 % sure that I will not run anymore races in Chattanooga. Look, you can even see a mountain in the background of this picture. Haha, if I really stick to that statement there may not be many races in my future.

 Trey, Kendall, and Kylee went to the race with me to be my cheering squad. Kylee was upset and asked me "mommy, why didn't you sign me up for the race?" Not really sure how to respond I told her "I don't think you are ready for 6.2 miles yet." Love her!

 This race did something interesting... To be such a large event I really expected them to break up the races. See, they had a 5K that day too and both the 5K races and 10K races started together. This made for a lot of congestion at the start. 5K runners had white bibs and 10K runners had blue bibs. Around mile 2 the courses separated and went in opposite directions.

 If you look close you will see me in my orange shirt. This picture was taken at the start of the race.

Oh, and here I am crossing the finish line and no before you ask that's not some strange camera angle... The race finished at the top of a hill! That's just wrong! Anyways, my finish time was 57:43. Just a little faster than my time last August. I'm definitely happy with that. I finished under an hour and I haven't really been training for a 10K. Still on the look out for a flat 10K if anyone knows of one please let me know. Flat ground is kind of hard to find in East Tennessee.

VBS 2011 Video #3

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VBS 2011 Video #2

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VBS 2011

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VBS NYC Style!

Last week our church had VBS. It was so much fun! We had 198 kids attend! Kendall was in the pre-k class, Kylee was in the 3 year old class, and I helped teach the 5th grade class.

 It was an exhausting week. The schedule was crazy. We packed so much into those three hours every day.

 I really enjoyed helping. This was the first year that I have had the opportunity though. Normally, this is the week that I am taking Kaitlynn to and from soccer camp. But... since she is overseas on another adventure I was able to.

 The girls really enjoyed it too! It sure did wear them out! They came home every afternoon and took great naps.

 As you can tell Kendall isn't camera shy at all!

The girls had so much fun at our VBS that they are going to VBS again this week at their grandparents' church. I love how much they are enjoying it.

The World Traveler!

We dropped Kaitlynn off at the airport yesterday to start her two week trip in Europe.

 Here are a few pictures that I took at the airport while we were waiting for her entire delegation to arrive. They had to all check their bags together and go through security together.

 She was so ready to go.

 Here is a picture of the two of us right after she checked her bag. She was very happy to hear that her bag only weighed 32 pounds. She said that means I've got room to bring 18 pounds of stuff back. Ha!

 Checking her baggage.

 A picture of her with her delegation.

 Walking to get in line for security. This is where we had to leave her. :(

 Well, this is where we were suppose to leave her... Kendall ran through security to get one last hug. :)

I'll try to update her travel details daily.